The Nature of Design in Brief

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Day 4108: The iCASS Platform

A Framework for LCD

The iCASS Platform is a framework for landscape conservation design: a holistic, yet flexible systems-based approach that encourages innovation to solve societal challenges.

The iCASS Platform is a synthesis of adaptation planning concepts and methodologies. It’s a set of five attributes — innovation, convene stakeholders, assess conditions, spatial design, and strategy design — and nine principles. The iCASS Platform is organized around four cornerstones of innovation: people, purpose, process, and product. It emphasizes a design process that is inclusive, interdisciplinary, interactive, and informative.

By providing organizational guidance to stakeholders on the overall design process, while allowing for local customization and innovation to unfold, the iCASS heuristic offers practical and flexible guidance for practitioners to follow.

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]]>4665Day 4,158: A Ray of Hope in the Himalayashttps://www.lcdinstitute.org/day-4158-ray-hope-himalayas/
Mon, 13 Aug 2018 11:15:59 +0000https://www.lcdinstitute.org/?p=4586Bhutan is a special place. A tiny jewel nestled in the folds of the Himalayas, Bhutan spans an incredibly rich ecological gradient from subtropical forest to the glaciers of some the highest mountains on Earth. It is one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots.

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Welcome to i4LCD’s Case Study Spotlight!

The Institute for Landscape Conservation Design (i4LCD) promotes practitioners with diverse experiences in landscape conservation design. We share their stories and highlight their project work. If you would like your project to be considered for a Case Study Spotlight, contact us at: info@lcdinstitute.org, include “Case Study Spotlight” in the Subject line, and give a short summary of your past or ongoing LCD project.

This month’s Case Study Spotlight: A Ray of Hope in the Himalayas is written by Sam Cushman. Sam is a Research Landscape Ecologist and the Director of the Center for Landscape Science at the U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station. The Forest Service’s mission is “to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the Nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations.” The mission of the Rocky Mountain Research Station is “to develop and deliver scientific knowledge and innovative technology to improve the health and use of the Nation’s forests and rangelands – both public and private.” Sam has worked for the Forest Service since 2003. He earned his M.S. degree in Terrestrial Ecology from Western Washington University and a Ph.D. in Landscape Ecology from the University of Massachusetts.

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Day 4,158: A Ray of Hope in the Himalayas

by Sam Cushman

Bhutan is a special place. A tiny jewelnestled in the folds of the Himalayas, Bhutan spans an incredibly rich ecological gradient from subtropical forest to the glaciers of some the highest mountains on Earth. It is one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. It is also blessed with a cultural commitment as a Buddhist kingdom to conservation and sustainability.

When Guru Rinpoche brought Buddhism to Bhutan he arrived flying on the back of a tiger, and wildlife retains a deep cultural significance impossible to understand from a western humanistic and utilitarian perspective. On my recent visit to Bhutan, the secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests explained to me that the central and official goal of the nation is to maximize gross national happiness, a concept in which the wellbeing of its people is placed above other considerations. Importantly, he said, the environment is a main pillar supporting happiness. That there is a mutual dependence and kinship between humans, wildlife and landscapes.

Following this principle Bhutan has implemented remarkable efforts to conserve forests and biodiversity, with 51% land area designated as protected areas and the world’s only national network of biological corridors established to connect them. In many ways Bhutan is an example and inspiration to the world, showing how conservation and development may be balanced through a nationwide conservation design.

Despite its great achievements in conservation, Bhutan, like all of the developing world, faces considerable challenges. As wealth increases from revenue obtained from hydropower and tourism, Bhutanese increasingly desire a higher standard of living. This results in increasing demands on resources, in particular timber, and land use. Simultaneously, there is an increase in rural to urban migration which has resulted in large numbers of young workers in Bhutan’s principal cities. Economic development has not kept pace with these rapid social changes, and the youth unemployment rate has increase from 9.5 to 13.5% in the past eight years. Increasing drug abuse and other social challenges has put considerable pressure on the government to increase economic opportunity for its urban population.

The country is now engaged in an effort to re-balance economic and conservation goals. This re-balancing involves several main components that are currently under debate and development. First, there is a goal to increase the extent of the protected area network to 60% of the countries land area, accompanied by a goal to increase the Tiger population by approximately 20% to ~120 individuals. At the same time, there is an effort to realign the biological corridor network to follow ecologically meaningful boundaries and increase administrative feasibility. Finally, there is an effort to identify key biodiversity areas outside of protected areas and to establish a new, six-level, national land use system to address competing land use decisions. The goal is to enable increased resource use and development while ensuring protection of protected areas and the long-term sustainability of ecosystems and biodiversity.

This is an ambitious and challenging effort, and the U.S. Forest Service’s Center for Landscape Science was very honored to be able to learn about it and begin the process of exploring how we might contribute. Led by the University of Oxford Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, our group has been developing broad scale and trans-boundary biodiversity assessments and conservation scenario optimizations across Southeast Asia for the past five years. Our approach involves coupling vast empirical datasets about species distributions and movement behavior with landscape modeling to identity and rank the importance of core areas and corridors, and evaluate the cumulative effects of alternative development and conservation scenarios.

While the discussion remains at an early stage it is likely we will formally work with the government of Bhutan to provide analysis and modeling tools and training to help the nation to achieve its desired balance of ecological sustainability and economic development. It was a tremendous honor and privilege to spend the better part of a week traveling with government biologists through a number of landscapes and protected areas in Bhutan and learn about the tremendously rich cultural and natural heritage of their nation. Given the rapacious destruction of natural ecosystems across the developing world, Bhutan stands out as a ray of hope that it remains possible to jointly maintain the wellbeing of humans and other animals in a society based on respect tolerance and sustainability.

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Welcome to i4LCD’s Practitioner Spotlight!

The Institute for Landscape Conservation Design (i4LCD) promotes practitioners with diverse experiences in landscape conservation design. We share their stories and highlight their project work. If you would like to be considered for a Practitioner Spotlight interview, contact us at: info@lcdinstitute.org, include “Practitioner Spotlight” in the Subject line, and give a short summary of your ability and/or related landscape conservation design project.

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Day 4,170: Practitioner Spotlight – Tom Miewald

This month’s Practitioner Spotlight is with Tom Miewald, Landscape Ecologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Science Applications program. Tom has worked on large-scale science and planning projects in many sectors, including academia, private consulting, non-profit organizations, and federal government. For the past 5 years, Tom’s work has focused on collaborative landscape conservation planning. He holds two degrees from the University of Nebraska: a Bachelor’s in Environmental Studies, and a Master’s in Geography.

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i4LCD: Who do you work for, Tom?

Tom: I work for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS, Service) in Portland, Oregon. The Service’s mission is “Working with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people.”

i4LCD: What’s your field of practice?

Tom: I’m a Geographer by training. What I find myself working on any given day as a Service employee isn’t identified in any federal position description. I spend a lot of time preparing for stakeholder workshops, working through gnarly issues related to landscape-scale analyses, and locating money and other resources so partners can continue doing the great work that they do.

i4LCD: What first interested you in geography?

Tom: I grew up in Nebraska where there isn’t much unplowed nature. I used to love to experience the wide open spaces and topographic relief of the west when I traveled as a kid. I was a total map geek, even back then. When I got to college, I changed my major a few times: from art, to anthropology, to environmental studies. I chose Geography for my Master’s work because it combined the natural and social sciences, plus it had awesome technology I could tinker with, like geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing. I developed a real passion for modeling ecosystems and species at broad spatial scales. I realized after doing that sort of work for a few years that the only people looking at my work were academics and graduate students; not on-the-ground resource managers. Now I’m interested in exploring how to engage people in deliberative processes so their perspectives can be incorporated into natural resources decision-making. Landscape conservation design and theiCASS Platform is one way to do that.

i4LCD: What are some of the major challenges the conservation community faces?

Tom: The future of the earth is 10 billion people sharing limited space with each other and other critters. Add on top of that, the challenge of a rapidly changing climate. How do we deal with that? It’s a huge question. The fact that society is increasingly fragmented in how we think and act doesn’t help us find an answer. Fragmented agencies, fragmented budgets, fragmented attention spans; it’s no surprise we have fragmented landscapes! If our goal is to protect species and conserve ecosystem services, we need to identify a shared vision for the landscape and begin to build it out.

Tom: I believe so. LCD processes help facilitate development of a holistic, landscape perspective, and that’s what’s needed to develop good public policy and make sound conservation investments. To facilitate LCD, we need networks of public and private entities all working together to achieve shared goals. I don’t mean to suggest the path forward is clear or easy, but that’s what it’s going to take to address what we’re up against.

i4LCD: What are some of the specific challenges you face as a LCD practitioner?

Tom: Generally speaking, practitioners like myself have a hard time helping stakeholders’ think beyond their own jurisdictional boundaries. It’s an interesting phenomena really because we all know biodiversity transcends human-defined boundaries, but jurisdictional missions and mandates are strong and influence stakeholders. Another challenge is related to getting local-level folks engaged. It’s just easier to get academics and scientists to review our landscape models then it is to get county planners and ranchers to do it. Lastly, we’re not doing a very good job translating the science and decision-making products so the public understand what we’re trying to do or care about our work. We need to do a better job of that, or LCD is just another academic exercise that isn’t relevant to local stakeholders.

i4LCD: What inspires you as a LCD practitioner?

Tom: People in the Pacific Northwest really inspire me. They care about their landscapes and have a lot of energy. They’re willing to take on challenging projects and try innovative ideas. If things don’t work out as originally planned, they embrace it as a learning experience. They’re passionate, imaginative, and committed to landscape conservation, and I’m really honored to be working with them. I think with perseverance, we’ll move towards our collective goals of sustainable landscapes in the Northwest.

i4LCD: Are you currently working on a LCD project?

Tom: Yeah, I’ve worked on a few LCD projects in the Pacific Northwest over the years. Some have been nice success stories. Others have been rough rides. I am currently coordinating a design process in the Pacific Northwest Coastal Ecoregion. That’s been a great experience.

i4LCD: What do the stakeholders hope the project will achieve?

Tom: We have a fairly diverse body of stakeholders engaged in the project right now, but we’re always trying to get new folks involved like private landowners, county planners, etc. Some themes that tie the project together include social and ecological connectivity. The concept of connectivity brings together ideas like habitat corridors and intact landscapes, which are important for protecting biodiversity and conserving ecosystem services. We’ve hosted many stakeholder meetings and facilitated lots of dialogue. We emphasize that forestry, agricultural, and other working lands are important parts of an ecologically connected landscape. Another key theme that we want to impart is that ecological, social, and economic aspects of landscape design should be on the same par.

i4LCD: Can you give us a sense of the process you’re using to develop the design?

Tom: We have an excellent group of state, federal, tribal, and non-profit representatives that make up the leadership team. We also have a project plan that is loosely based on the iCASS Platform and the recommended practices for LCD that were developed by the Landscape Conservation Cooperatives. We’ve been using those resources to structure our work. We’ve found that if you have too rigid of a work plan, the project will fail. Conversely, if you have too loose of a work plan, and you try to do everything, it will also fail. There’s a delicate balance we’re trying to navigate.

i4LCD: What type of products do you expect resulting from the design?

Tom: Ultimately, we want to develop landscape-scale strategies that maintain or restore connected landscapes. The data, science, and corridor maps that comes out of the design process will offer the foundation for strategy development. One thing we don’t want to develop is a 10-pound document with terabytes of data that people can’t digest.

i4LCD: Do you have any last thoughts to share?

Tom: In talking with some folks, I get a sense there’s a reticence towards landscape science and strategy development. That if it’s not “boots on the ground” conservation, it’s not real. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Some of the most important innovations in conservation have come through understanding broader-scale issues. For instance, satellite imagery of deforestation in Amazonia lead to development of a global movement; and our understanding of migration flyways lead to the design of the National Wildlife Refuge System. Understanding landscape patterns is incredibly important. I agree that most of our conservation dollars need to go to on-the-ground work. However, to increase our effectiveness, we need innovative institutions, like the Landscape Conservation Cooperatives, that are able to coordinate and facilitate deliberative, science-based dialogues between multi-jurisdiction, multi-sector stakeholders that ultimately lead to strategic decision-making. That’s what LCD is all about.

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Day 4,185 – Landscape Conservation Design

“Integrated planning: the single most important public institution and political process needed to support transformation to sustainable development. Strong planning units need to be built through enhanced partnerships of governments, universities and think tanks.”

Although HLPF representatives from Mexico and Switzerland called for mainstreaming biodiversity, and the European Union called for the same level of commitment to biodiversity conservation as countries have demonstrated for climate change, Anne Larigauderie (Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) said the Aichi Biodiversity Targets will not be met by 2020, threatening SDG 15. She highlighted the need for the private sector to engage in multi-stakeholder efforts to safeguard biodiversity. Keynote speaker, Simon Levin (Princeton University) called for more systemic thinking.

An inspiring report from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) was launched at the HLPF. It identifies six transformations needed for successful achievement of the SDG. Integrated planning is “the single most important” factor to carry out (pg. 26), with “public deliberation” and “public-private partnerships” ranked second and third.

TWI2050 – The World in 2050. (2018). Transformations to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Report prepared by The World in 2050 Initiative. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria. Retrieved from http://pure.iiasa.ac.at/15347

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]]>4398Day 4,256: The iCASS Platformhttps://www.lcdinstitute.org/day-4256-icass-platform/
Mon, 07 May 2018 10:30:50 +0000https://www.lcdinstitute.org/?p=4005The Institute is pleased to share this recently published paper: The iCASS Platform: Nine principles for landscape conservation design. It was written by authors representing federal and state agencies, non-profit organizations, and the Landscape Conservation Cooperatives. The paper is dedicated to co-author, John Pierce, who passed away on February 23, 2018.

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Let’s get started…

The Institute is pleased to share this recently published paper: The iCASS Platform: Nine principles for landscape conservation design. It was written by authors representing federal and state agencies, non-profit organizations, and the Landscape Conservation Cooperatives. The paper is dedicated to co-author, John Pierce, who passed away on February 23, 2018. John was the Chief Wildlife Scientist for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, where he worked for over 30 years. John truly embodied the spirit of landscape conservation: passionate, innovative, and committed to collaboration. He had a unique ability to inspire others, and will be greatly missed by all.

Innovation

Campellone et al., (2018) propose a heuristic for landscape conservation design: the iCASS Platform. The iCASS Platform is an innovation systems framework: a holistic, yet flexible systems-based approach that encourages innovation to solve societal challenges. It consists of five attributes – innovation, convening stakeholders, assessing current and plausible future landscape conditions, spatial design, and strategy design – and nine principles. The iCASS Platformemphasizes a design process that is inclusive, interdisciplinary, interactive, and informative. The authors’ intention is to pivot from single-institution, siloed assessment and planning to stakeholder-driven, participatory design that leads to collaborative decision-making and extensive landscape conservation.